The Story

He was finally feeling some relief. There was an odd scraping sound which was starting to stir up a headache, but he would take a simple headache over the fever and nausea that plagued so many of his days recently.

It was more irritating than anything. He would be in the middle of an important meeting and then suddenly soaked in sweat, with random itches in unreachable places. He let the advisors think he was overheating, perhaps even a bit nervous about the discussion. Whenever it happened he would dramatically call for more water and another fan for the room. Occasionally a fresh fruit platter. It was better he appeared sensational and demanding than any sort of weak.

The cough had made that more difficult. He quickly took up the practice of constant incense smoking, to better communicate with the beyond of course. It also provided a helpful haze around his person, making him appear ethereal while hiding paling skin.

It was just what was going around these days and it was his turn apparently, though he felt as he should have really been above such a thing. It was hard to avoid with so very many people around the residence at all times. He was lucky indeed to have been alone when the fainting spell happened. He was not sure how he would explain that away, though he was thinking perhaps something about being divinely visioned? But then he would have to spend more time with those aging priests. Something else then.

And he would think of it after he figured out what that scraping sound was and had whoever was making it killed. Hadn’t he suffered enough? Every time some foreign dignitary brought a new disease with them, he soldiered on with his duties with nary a pause. Sometimes literally soldiering- what other pharaoh had to defend their borders with three physicians breathing down his neck, trying to bleed him and stuff herbs down his throat while he commanded? None he knew of. Or at least none that had done it well enough to be carved into history.

By the GODS who was making that sound? So near his chamber! He stood, shaking off his bedsheets, and abruptly halted. Beneath his feet was not the smooth cool stone of his chambers. He wiggled his toes, in a rather undignified manner he admitted, to find that there were rough blocks here instead. He surveyed the room- it was his chamber indeed. Or at least arranged like his chamber. All his possessions as they were- except instead of the lovely acacia tables he’d had made for his wife, his things were piled on bejeweled chests, each painted more intricately than the last.

No, he decided, was not his chamber. His chamber had the melody of small fountains and the calming scents of herbed oils. Where his wide window to look upon his people and feel the sweet air of his land should be- another wall. Other than the terrible scraping, there was silence. He smelled only dry earth and something oddly sour.

A nightmare, surely. He spun towards each corner. His desk here, his water basin there. All pressed against rough carvings rather than where they belonged. Was he captured perhaps? Why would his captors have also brought his belongings? Some were valuable, yes, but others like his great aunt’s weavings, were only so to him.

He searched for any indication of who had brought him here. Was there already a ransom set? How had they gotten by the guards? That was IT. He would never let another foreigner in the residence until a physician had cleared them and would order for a second food taster as well. Ridiculous to be a kidnapped god. Who would dare?! Who could even-

He saw them. The four urns stood on a small bench at the end of his bed: Imsety, Hapy, Duamutef, and Qebehsenuef peering at him with gem-set eyes.

“Sons of Horus…” he whispered, “say you are not here to guard… me.”

They did not answer. With a steady hand and racing heart, he touched his fingers lightly to his chest. A cut. Raised slightly, it ran the length of his abdomen.

This was no nightmare.

Oh, but it was.

The Word

Unconquerable (adj): 1. Incapable of being conquered; indomitable, 2. Incapable of being surmounted

A little short and sweet today! Well, maybe not sweet for our pharaoh…

I’m on my character-study arc again, and I was thinking about “oh how the mighty have fallen” but not in a revenge or justice kind of way. What about after surviving everything, after winning, after out doing the foes and the rebels and everything else- just an everyday life thing, got’em.

If one were to follow my (imperfect) clues, one may deduce our fellow here was not actually taken by a foreign disease or poison as he suspected, but by a pretty common death for ancient Egypt: schistosomiasis (or in I’m-not-a-scientist-don’t-come-for-me terms, “drinking contaminated water from the Nile”). Apparently it can take weeks to fully set in! So even the Egyptians, who caught on to medicine stuff faster than the rest of the world, had a hard time with it.

Good news: It turns out he is immortal due to his god-like status! Bad news: The only door they left him is a metaphorical one painted on the wall for his soul.

I wonder what will become of him…

…happy reading!